Thursday, April 4, 2013

Spider-Man and His Henchmen

Marvel has decreed this week to be 'Superior Spider-Man' week and as such has been releasing all kinds of information on some up and coming Spider-plots. Today's announcement (which you can read here) says that OttoPeter debuts a new look while going after the remnants of Shadowland utilizing new methods that Spider-Man has never ever used before. It comes with this image:

It doesn't take a brain surgeon to gather from this picture that Otto is going to get entrepreneurial and hire some assistants. On the surface, I really dig this idea. I mean, of course a supervillain turned hero would fall back on his old tricks, including and not limited to, hiring lackeys to do his bidding; He'll be like his own street-level SHEILD. Honestly, I'm surprised more heroes don't try doing this. Seems like something Iron Man would have done a few years ago around Civil War when he was trying to save everyone.

Anyway. While I like the possibilities inherent in this idea, it makes me even more concerned about what's going to happen with Peter. Especially considering that at the beginning of the week, the big tease was a more near-future story in which Peter and Otto fight it out to see who will control the body that is Peter Parker.

So... If this happens first and then Spider-Man is hiring help with matching uniforms, I think we can surmise that this is a battle that Peter doesn't win (Also this headline doesn't help). So what happens to him?

My cynical, paranoia addled brain came up with this insane scenario: It all leads to a new clone saga.

Crazy, I know, but hold on. The way I see it, the way to expel Peter would be to give it a psyche for it to exist: cue clonage. What with the Jackal running around again in the books and an emphasis on 90s storylines (I'm looking at you Scarlet Spider!), it's not that big of a leap to consider that happening. Then, Original Recipe Peter exists in a new cloned body while Otto runs around in the old meatsuit which allows for all the neat storytelling of OttoPeter to continue while not totally ruining Peter.

So then, after the story has run it's course, you can have Peter wake up in his cloned body and go fight Otto. I see it ending something like this:

Admittedly, most of this crazed idea comes exclusively from Otto's new suit looking like Ben Reilly's, but who's to say that makes it any less valid?

I could go further with my crackpot theories involving the age of this supposed cloned Peter, but it makes so much sense that it scares me. Also, we seem to be at our limit for crazyness today. Maybe later... if you're lucky.